The McStays: A lingering mystery

Fliers with color photos of the missing McStay family handed out by family on Saturday April 3, 2010, in San Ysidro. The McStay family's vehicle, a white 1996 Isuzu Trooper, was found abandoned in a San Ysidro parking lot on Feb. 8.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / Union-Tribune

Fliers with color photos of the missing McStay family handed out by family on Saturday April 3, 2010, in San Ysidro. The McStay family's vehicle, a white 1996 Isuzu Trooper, was found abandoned in a San Ysidro parking lot on Feb. 8.
— Nelvin C. Cepeda / Union-Tribune

Summer’s sister, Tracy Russell, said she’s heard about the book but doesn’t plan to read it. “We’ve suffered enough, and this just makes it harder,” she said. “So many horrible things are being said, and they’ve made my sister into this horrible person. Everybody has character flaws, but to attack her that way, when she isn’t here to defend herself, is so hurtful.”

The book also points fingers at Mike McStay and others over the handling of his brother’s business affairs and personal property after the disappearance. “Did Mike,” the book asks, “know Joseph wasn’t coming back?”

McStay said, “Our family hasn’t taken any of that money, not one dime.” He said funds were used to complete fountain projects already under way and to make child-support payments for Joseph’s teenage son.

Giannantonio, the sheriff’s lieutenant, said, “We have reviewed financial records and have found nothing that would lead us to believe a crime has occurred.”

Asked about the book, McStay sighed. “For everyone else, this is just a story to them,” he said. “For us, this is real life. You try to take the high road and turn the other cheek. Unfortunately, a case like this brings out the bottom dwellers, people trying to line their pockets on the misery of others.”

Baker said any profits he makes from the book — at one point last week pre-orders made it Number 7 on Amazon’s “true crime” best-sellers list — will be donated to a search-and-rescue organization in Texas.

Hopes and fears

Everybody waits.

“It’s three years later, and we have the same hopes and fears,” Russell said. “There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t wonder, worry and try to figure it out.”

Joseph’s mother still sends him emails, catching him up on things, just in case.

Summer’s mom frets whenever the weather turns cold, worried that the family, out there somewhere, might not have enough clothing or shelter to stay warm.

On Avocado Vista Lane, a new family lives in the McStays’ house, which went into foreclosure after they vanished. Neighbor Chris Southard said memories of the disappearance linger.

“We are a close neighborhood. They were new. By the time we knew them a little bit, the news vans were here,” Southard said. The prevailing theory on the street is that “something awful happened. They are never coming back.”

The same hopes. The same fears. The same mystery.

Family members have been encouraged to write their own books. Mike McStay is planning to. “What the heck,” he said, “everybody else is.”

Russell isn’t interested. “I just don’t think it’s going to bring my family home,” she said. “Who are we to sing their song, when we don’t even know what happened to their voices?”